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Series One, Episode Four
Summary Part One Vicki Butler-Henderson shows the viewers the new Honda Civic Type-R, which has 197 horsepower, can go from zero to sixty miles per hour in just less than six seconds, and has a stylish interior. She then adds that they will be reviewing a rival hot hatch - the Ford Focus ST170. She shows the viewers its features: a new mesh grille, cool fog-lamps and seventeen-inch alloy wheels. Butler-Henderson explains the meaning of the ST170 term - ST stands for Sports Technologies, and the car has 170 horsepower. She admires the metal-made pedals, chrome gear-knob and handbrake, and a speedometer that is completely different to that of the normal Focus. She adds that the nice features are worth spending an extra £2,000, and, taking it for a test drive, compliments the good traction and grip. The only minus sides, though, are the six-speed gearbox which isn't as good to handle as the Honda's, and the chassis, which is "so good that the more you drive it, the more you can hear it begging for more power". She says that it's a good car, though in a "refined and understated way". She admits that she would choose to buy the Civic, but that she likes the Focus, too. Quentin Willson talks about the then-recent Hatfield railway disaster, which killed four and injured thirty-four. It was on the front page of newspapers around the United Kingdom for a very long time, and it will cost many billions of pounds to prevent such accidents from happening again. He wonders why road accidents in the United Kingdom do not cause such uproar, as an average of 3,400 people die in road accidents in England - equal to sixteen railway accidents a week. Willson adds that there are many unsafe roads in the country, and relatively cheap and simple modifications could be made to save thousands of lives. He talks to John Dawson about the four main types of car crashes and ways to prevent them from happening: firstly, head-on collisions. Because the cars on the road they're filming on are travelling at sixty miles an hour, the impacts will be devastating. However, they could separate the two strips of road with a safety fence, like they do in Sweden. The second type of car crash is the pedestrian-involved accidents: although it will cost £10,000,000 to improve the safety of the trunk road they've moved to, the safety measures can be made gradually. The third is roadside hazards; cars hitting lampposts can cost five hundred lives a year. Dawson suggests that solid objects like the aforementioned lampposts can have safety barriers around them, unlike the road they are currently on. The fourth and final type of car crash is the type that happens at junctions - having moved to a junction themselves, Willson and Dawson point out that the cars, travelling at sixty miles per hour, can crash into each other at the intersections and leave their occupants gravely injured. Willson then points out that the United Kingdom has the most heavily taxed motorists in Western Europe. Twenty-seven years earlier, the government took £12,000,000,000 from motorists and spent it all on roads, and in the present, they've taken £38,000,000,000 as road tax - and spent just six billion of it on roads. "The AA call it scandalous under-investment, I'd call it theft," he says. He then shows the viewers some of the "death roads" in the country between 1997 and 1999: the A1065 from Swaffham to Fakenham, on which twenty-three grave accidents have happened due to too many unprotected objects, followed by the A43 which runs from Kettering to Corby, which is "littered with badly planned junctions", and the rest of the A43 which runs from Corby to Stamford, which has had fifteen head-on collisions in the past three years. 10% of The Treasury's revenue is paid by motorists, says Willson, and it ought to be spent on reducing the chances of fatalities on roads in the United Kingdom. Part Two Adrian Simpson talks about the Ford Model T; 17 million were made, one would come off the production line every ten seconds, and it was so strong that it could "drive through trees". He then talks to Model T enthusiast and farmer Neil Tuckett, who buys, restores and sells Model Ts. Tuckett tells Simpson that he goes to America, buys parts, and fits them on cars which come from a factory in Manchester. His clients include a Sheikh from Qatar and a racetrack owner in Malaysia. He looks at Tuckett's stock, which comprises of Model T tractors, army vehicles and people carriers. Tuckett shows Simpson a particularly rusty model, which he bought for £3,000. After servicing it and replacing the tyres, he refused to exchange it for nine thousand pounds. He then points out that the accelerator is in the shape of a switch near the steering wheel, and the gears are pedals placed next to the brakes. He takes a 1925 Tourer model out for a drive and then returns it to the farm. He assures the viewers that if they think the normal model isn't suitable for their taste, they can always buy the roadster variant to "scare themselves silly". Tiff Needell tells the viewers about how the zero to sixty mile an hour record was broken in 1994, saying that it is a good time to beat the record. Using a four-wheel drive Tiger Z100 with low ground clearance and two 1.2 litre Kawasaki engines - one to power the front wheels and another to power the rear. He introduces the viewers to the Dudley family who invented the Z100 - managing director James, his wife Sue, who runs the business on a daily routine, their daughters Jo and Dora, and their designing manager Chris. He takes the model for a test drive, and points out that the gear lever is split into two so that either one engine can be individually powered or both can be powered at the same time. The car also has two rev counters to show what each engine is doing. However, Needell says that one will need a levelled track, witnesses and an experienced driver to set the record. After doing a round, he drives back to find out whether he was successful or not - and finds out he broke the record by one tenth of a second! Unfortunately, the car's engine was damaged in the attempt. Presenters Regular presenters * Vicki Butler-Henderson * Tiff Needell * Adrian Simpson * Quentin Willson Guest presenters * John Dawson * Chris Dudley * Dora Dudley * Jo Dudley * James Dudley * Sue Dudley * Neil Tuckett Crew Cameramen * Darren Cox * Alan Duxbury * Barrie Foster * Keith Schofield Sound editors * Andrew Chorlton * Tim Green * Rob Leveritt * Andy Morton * Benedict Peissel * Paul Taylor Editors * Mike Bloore * Keith Brown * Brian Watkiss Titles * Burrell Durrant Hifle Composers * David Lowe Production team * Jon Bentley (producer) * Kulvinder Chudge (production co-ordinator) * Karen O'Donovan (secretary) * Debbie Vile (production manager) * James Woodroffe (assistant producer) Researchers * Phil Churchward * Patrick Collins Executive producer * Richard Pearson Notes * When Needell took the Z100 for a test drive, subtitles were added over the noise due to viewers being unable to hear what he was saying clearly. Category:2002 episodes Category:Series One episodes